From the Cheap Seats - RVC's best volleyball coaches are local

Tipton High volleyball coach Amy Calonder was named the River Valley Conference co-Coach of the Year for the South Division this fall.  Calonder helped lead the Tigers to a 25-10 record and state ranking in class 2A this season.

By Ryan Stonebraker

Sports Editor, Tipton Conservative

It’s not every year that one of the school’s I cover has a coach honored with Coach of the Year honors.  This year, three of the four volleyball coaches that lead our teams did just that.  It was an outstanding fall for Tipton, North Cedar and Wilton on the court.  The head coaches from the programs, all won a share or outright conference titles and all were ranked in class 2A at some point this season.  

I couldn’t be happier for all three.  I know how much they have put into their season and in building their programs and it is awesome that they are rewarded for a small part of their team’s success.  Tipton’s Amy Calonder, North Cedar’s Traci Smith and Wilton’s Brenda Grunder swept the RVC’s top coaching honors and their guidance for their teams provided us all with a lot of memories from their play.

Calonder the calm, steady leader of the Tigers, came to Tipton in the 2003-04 school year after coaching at Glenwood in Southern Iowa for three years and spending one season as an assistant coach on the Coe College volleyball team.  She is now the dean of varsity head coaches at Tipton, having been here as the head coach of the volleyball program since 2003.

In typical form, Calonder deflected the praise when I asked her about the honor.

“I am humbled and honored to get this,” said Calonder.  “It was my first time to get this (Coach of the Year Award) and it’s exciting,” she said.

To be nominated, fellow RVC South coaches have to nominate someone and each coach can not nominate themselves or, vote for themselves when the time comes.  Knowing that makes me excited even more for these three.  To be recognized by your peers for your hard work makes all of the early practices, Saturday tournaments, and sometimes impossible parents, fans and media types, worth it.

Calonder has guided the Tigers in three conferences with the Eastern Iowa Hawkeye, Cedar Valley and now River Valley, her best record being in the RVC.  She has an overall record of 145-140 since 2008.  In that time, the Tigers have had 18 or more match wins four times including 25 this fall.

Calonder and the Tigers have really taken off after the River Valley Conference was formed.  In the four seasons of the RVC, the Tigers have a record of 78-54.  Add to that a conference title this year, a regular in the 2A rankings in each of the past two seasons, and some of the biggest rosters in recent memory and the program is in good hands.

Though this is an honor for Calonder, she would be the first to say that it’s a testament to the play of her players hard work and dedication, and the support from her assistant coaches.  Head coaches don’t pass, set or kill, nor do they dig, serve or block.  The players do.  The Tigers are set to be good for years to come with the numbers here and in the future waiting in the wings whether that is JV or middle school.  

Head coaches can’t be everywhere all of the time with every player.  Assistant coaches are.  The Tigers have had a staff that has been together for the past six years and that cohesiveness has, in my opinion, helped with the recent success as much as anything.  Assistant coaches Adam Spangler and Amanda Vollbrecht have been by Calonder’s side for six seasons and Vollbrecht for the past 11.  Both have helped develop the current crop of players into varsity volleyball stars.

Not only has Calonder been honored, but North Cedar’s Traci Smith and Wilton’s Brenda Grunder, making it a clean sweep of the conference’s top coaching honor among our schools that we cover here at the Conservative.

Smith, a Wartburg graduate and former Knight player, has brought North Cedar’s program back to power status.  The school itself has been around only since the mid-1990’s after consolidation or Clarence-Lowden and Lincoln schools.  Those early years of its existence, the Knight program made trips to the state tournament from 1995-97 under coach Marilee Oldorf.  The program took a dip when Oldorf retired, but now under Smith’s leadership, the program has put together a force to be reckoned with.  North Cedar has been to back-to-back Regional Finals and have spent more time ranked in the IGHSAU top-15 than not over the past four seasons.  

Grunder is a longtime coach of the Beavers and led the Beavers to the state tournament just before I began working at the Conservative.  The Beavers won 32 of their 38 matches this season, were ranked in the top-15, and have a solid future.

I predict that all three coaches will vie for the top coaching honors again in the next few years.  All three programs have solid foundations to keep up their recent success.  Next year, look for these three programs, as well as an improving Durant club to make volleyball exciting for Cedar Country and the River Valley Conference.